JOURNAL OF POLYMER ENGINEERING

 Vol. 21, No. 6, 2001, page 543

REACTIVE PROCESSING OF NYLON-6 AND TRIPHENYL PHOSPHITE. I.  MOLECULAR WEIGHT CHANGES

 Suédina M. L. Silva¹, Marcos L. Dias^2* and Chiaki Azuma³

 ¹Departamento de Engenharia de Materiais - Universidade Federalda Paraíba, P.O Box 10034, 58109-970, Campina Grande, PB, Brazil

²Instituto de Macromoléculas Professora Eloisa Mano

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, P.O. Box 68525, 21945-970 , Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

³The University of the Air, Japan, 4-1-1 Shimouma, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 154, Japan

 ABSTRACT

      Nylon-6 chain extension by means of reactive processing in the presence of triphenyl phosphite (TPP) was investigated using an internal mixer coupled with a torque sensor. The molecular weight was dependent on TPP concentration, processing time, polymer drying conditions, rotational speed and processing temperature. The molecular weight greatly increased after TPP addition. The highest values were observed when 3 wt% of TPP was added to the polyamide. Polydispersity increased as a function of the amount of TPP. The higher the TPP concentration, the higher was the polydispersity. Long processing time, high rotational speed and high processing temperature led to the lower  values. The degree of crystallinity of nylon-6 was slightly reduced when the polyamide was processed in the presence of TPP at 80 and 100 rpm and 280oC.

 Key Words: reactive processing, nylon-6, chain extension, triphenyl phosphite, molecular weight.

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